


if you've got the blood

by SoloChaos



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 00:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2448446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoloChaos/pseuds/SoloChaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>TRIGGER WARNING for non-graphic self harm and suicide attempts. It's not done by the narrator, but the narrator is physically affected by it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	if you've got the blood

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING for non-graphic self harm and suicide attempts. It's not done by the narrator, but the narrator is physically affected by it.

Josh has gotten little bruises that he didn't make himself growing up, scrapes even though he didn't fall. It's uncommon, but not unheard of to have a connection with your soulmate where injuries are shared. If Josh was skin his knee, his soulmate would find themself with a matching injury. If his soulmate was to break their wrist, Josh's would break as well. If Josh was to get something as simple as a paper cut, his soulmate would feel it. And if his soulmate was to die...

Well, Josh tries not to think about it.

In all, the only positive to Josh's situation is the assurance that he most definitely does have a soulmate. And he hopes that he'll meet them soon, because the only way for the nicks and bruises he didn't get himself to stop coming is for them to meet.

 

Josh is in second grade when he wakes up in the middle of the night, discovering that he can't breathe.

His brother, who was sleeping in the bed on the other side of the room, sits up when he hears Josh thump onto the ground.

"Josh? What's going on?" Jordan asks sleepily, turning on the lamp next to his bed.

There's a moment of relaxed pressure on Josh's throat, giving him enough time to choke out, "GetMomcan'tbreathe," before the pressure tightens again and he feels his neck bruising.

Jordan, thankfully, is quick to react. He vaults out of his bed, skidding as he dashes out the door.

Josh grabs his duvet, squeezing it hard in an attempt to distract himself from the fact that _he can't breathe._

His parents fortunately come running back, Jordan on their heels. His father is already calling 911.

"Josh, sweetie, is something in your throat?" his mom asks, looking frightened as she drops down beside him.

Josh shakes his head, fighting down panic. He's getting dizzy, and there are colors starting to flash before his eyes.

"Stay with me, Joshua," his mother instructs when she notices he's starting to drift off.

 _Sleepy,_ he thinks, and everything goes dark.

 

Josh's throat hurts.

It's a couple years later (three, specifically), and while his throat is perfectly healed, he still feels little buzzes of pain where his breathing was cut off.

He doesn't tell anyone about those.

He knows his mom wanted to send him to therapy after that incident, he's heard his parents' hushed conversations in the halls, and he knows he doesn't need therapy. He's fine. It was just a freaky scare.

Josh is in school, not really listening to his teacher talk when he feels something dig into his left arm.

"Ow!" he yelps.

"Josh?" his desk neighbor asks, turning to him. "You all right?"

He's about to tell her that he's fine when the pain comes again. Josh lets out another cry of pain, and watches in morbid, painful fascination as his arm is crudely cut open into a crescent, wincing with each cut. They're not really cuts, exactly. It's more like his skin is being dug out.

By this time, his teacher has walked over, probably ready to tell Josh and his neighbor to be quiet and pay attention, but she stops when she realizes that Josh's skin is being carved into, and he's not the one doing it.

"I'm sorry," Josh apologizes, wincing with pain. "It's not my fault, they're just showing up-"

"It's all right," his teacher interrupts. "You may go to the nurse's office, Josh."

She looks at him sympathetically, kind of sadly. Josh doesn't understand why he's being looked at like that, but he goes.

 

His parents have been having way more whisper-arguments in the halls, and they've only increased doing so when Josh wakes up one night, vomiting up a chalky tasting liquid with a couple small-yet-noticable cuts on his wrists.

He doesn't know what's happening to him.

 

Josh is in seventh grade when he gets the first cut on his leg.

"Ow!" he mutters, flinching back and pulling up his pant leg. There's a long, horizontal cut near his knee, and it hurts.

"Mr. Dun," the teacher says, pausing the warm-up. He sounds stern, and Josh shows him his leg.

"It just appeared," he says. "Could I go to the nurse, please?"

His teacher is growing slightly pale. "Oh- okay," his teacher says, and giving him a confused look, Josh walks out of the classroom.

 

Ninth grade is so much fun.

Several times a week Josh wakes up with his boxers bloodstained where his hipbones touch fabric. There's a network of scars on his hips, and they're ugly and they're not even _his._

He's kind of really pissed off at his soulmate. He hates having to explain to the people that see his leg that no, he is not self-harming, that yes, his soulmate is, and no, that's not just an excuse.

He sometimes feels awful when he hates his soulmate even though he knows that they must hate themselves too. They must, in order to be able to do something like that to themself.

Then he makes himself feel better by reminding himself that the worst _he's_ ever given his soulmate was a skinned elbow when he was eight.

(Then he feels worse for feeling as though he can justify his irritation.)

He gets little cuts on his legs, his ankles, and sometimes his arm. They all hurt. They always hurt.

 

He's in tenth grade math class, doodling into his notebook when he suddenly becomes aware of a sharp pain in his arms. He holds his arms up to realize that they've been... They've seen slit.

Josh swallows hard, standing up and desperately trying to staunch the blood. He's already growing dizzy, though. Whoever his soulmate is, they're probably not going to fail.

 _Three's the charm,_ he thinks to himself as he drops to his knees, already too weak to stand. _Three. Third time._

He wonders if he should hate his soulmate. It probably wouldn't do to have last few moments of his life be of hatred, and he knows that he's not going to make it this time.

He thinks about whispering, "I love you," instead, but he's lost too much blood already and all he can see is blurry figures moving around, touching him, trying to keep him from dying. He knows it won't work.

He drifts off into the darkness, resigned.

**Author's Note:**

> So it's 'round 3 AM, I wrote this all tonight, and I know I should be working on the Halloween fic but no my sleep deprived mind wants to be personal. 
> 
> I saw this prompt on tumblr: Imagine your OTP in a world where if your soulmate is harmed in any way, you get harmed in the same way. Person A cuts themselves, believing they’ll never find their soulmate. (It’s Person B) Person B finds marks all over their arms and panics in the realization that their soulmate is cutting themselves. What happens beyond there is up to you. 
> 
> I didn't exactly follow it to the T, but there it is. 
> 
> Recently I bore witness to several fics that wrote both self harm and suicide attempts, well, how do I say this, _horribly._ It offended me, and when I saw that prompt, I decided to write something that I feel confident that is an accurate representation of at least one case. This was not graphic, it did not go into depth about the self harm and the suicide, but it was simply something I felt was a perfectly legitimate example of someone who struggled with self harm and suicidal thoughts even though the person was never introduced. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think, and let me know if you want something more in-depth.


End file.
